Becoming A Man is a school-based social and emotional learning intervention for children aged between 12 and 18 years old from lower socioeconomic backgrounds deemed at risk of failing to attain good academic outcomes and most likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system. It is delivered by counsellors to individuals and groups of adolescents for two years.
The information above is as offered/supported by the intervention provider.
12 to 16 years old
Individual, Group
Becoming A Man (BAM) is a school-based social and emotional learning intervention. It is a targeted selective group intervention intervention for children between the ages of 12 and 18 years old. The intervention is delivered by a BAM counsellor over the course of a school year through 25 weekly group sessions to groups of between 10 to 12 participants, and 30 weekly individual one-to-one sessions lasting 15 minutes each. It is typically delivered in secondary schools to pupils that reside in deprived areas and come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
The intervention aims to improve school engagement and completion and reduce interactions with the criminal justice system by supporting male youth to develop skills surrounding a positive identity, resilience, and a sense of belonging through group sessions led by a ‘pro-social’ male counsellor, and one-to-one sessions to address personal challenges.
Each weekly group counselling session, or BAM Circle, sees a group of participants learn, practise, and internalise social-emotional skills that align with six core values: Integrity, Accountability, Self-Determination, Positive Anger Expression, Respect for Womanhood, and Visionary Goal Setting.
A BAM counsellor will lead the group session using activities and learning material to develop these skills and foster a sense of belonging and positive identity among the group, as well as getting participants to reflect on themselves, their responsibilities and decision-making, and their relationships with others.
Through individual one-to-one check-ins, BAM counsellors foster a positive relationship with participants to address personal challenges that stand in the way of participants’ goals and aspirations, and to reinforce values and competencies from the BAM curriculum.
12 to 18 years old
Young adolescent males who are deemed at risk of failing to attain good academic outcomes and most likely to encounter the criminal justice system.
Disclaimer: The information in this section is as offered/supported by the intervention provider.
Science-based assumption
Living in disadvantaged, high-crime areas exposes youth to chronic stress, instability, and limited access to positive role models, which negatively impacts their engagement in education and increases the risk of involvement in crime.
Science-based assumption
Cognitive-behavioural interventions can help youth improve decision-making by addressing their automatic, impulsive responses to reduce risky behaviours and improve emotional regulation.
Science-based assumption
Economically disadvantaged male students, primarily African American and Hispanic, in high-crime, low-income neighbourhoods, considered at risk of poor educational outcomes and involvement in criminal activities.
Intervention
The intervention uses activities like role-playing and group discussions to foster self-reflection, helping young people manage conflicts better in both school and street environments.
Short-term
Young people develop resiliencies such as emotional regulation, empathy, self-awareness, and trust.
Medium-term
Young people decrease aggressive behaviours in school and increase their academic engagement and achievement.
Long-term
Improved graduation rates
Reduced involvement in the criminal justice system.
Male youth aged 12 to 18 years old from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Becoming A Man is delivered in 25 weekly sessions of one hour’s duration by BAM counsellors, to groups of adolescents of between 10 to 12 participants, and 30 weekly individual one-to-one sessions lasting 15 minutes each.
Each weekly group counselling session, or BAM Circle, sees a group of participants learn, practise, and internalise social-emotional skills that align with six core values: Integrity, Accountability, Self-Determination, Positive Anger Expression, Respect for Womanhood, and Visionary Goal Setting.
A BAM counsellor will lead the group session using activities and learning material to develop these skills and foster a sense of belonging and positive identify among the group, as well as getting participants to reflect on themselves, their responsibilities and decision-making, and their relationships with others.
Through individual one-to-one check-ins, BAM counsellors foster a positive relationship with participants to address personal challenges that stand in the way of participants’ goals and aspirations, and to reinforce values and competencies from the BAM curriculum.
The practitioner who delivers this intervention is a BAM counsellor.
The practitioners have 300 hours of intervention training. Booster training of practitioners is not required.
It is recommended that practitioners are supervised by one external intervention developer supervisor, with 494 hours of intervention training.
Furthermore, it is recommended that practitioners are supervised by one host-agency supervisor, with 350 hours of intervention training.
Intervention fidelity is maintained through the following processes:
Contact person: Michael Bergstrom
Organisation: Youth Guidance
Email address: Info@youth-guidance.org
Website: https://www.youth-guidance.org/bam/
*Please note that this information may not be up to date. In this case, please visit the listed intervention website for up to date contact details.
Becoming A Man’s most rigorous evidence comes from two RCTs which were conducted in the United States consistent with Foundations’ Level 3 threshold. As one of these evaluations includes evidence showing that child benefits persist past one year, BAM receives a rating of Level 4 overall.
These studies observed statistically significant improvements in school performance and reductions in arrests for violent crime and for all crime.
Becoming A Man can be described as evidence-based: it has evidence from at least one rigorously conducted RCT demonstrating a statistically significant positive impact on a child outcome and also has evidence of a long-term effect.
The best evidence for the Becoming A Man intervention reviewed by EIF examined implementations of Becoming A Man accompanied by a supplementary sports component. The sports component involved a range of sports such as archery and boxing designed to facilitate teachable moments in which the ethos of Becoming A Man (i.e. controlling aggressive or impulsive behaviours) can be applied, and was delivered by coaches trained in some aspects of the Becoming A Man approach. It is worth noting that this sports component is not featured as part of the standard Becoming A Man intervention. It is possible that this additional provision contributed to the effects observed in the studies, or otherwise helped to drive engagement with the intervention and reinforce the learning from it. However, participation in the sports component was low, and additional analyses provided by Youth Guidance generally suggest that Becoming A Man had an impact independent of the sports component, particularly in terms of violent arrests. The evidence that Becoming A Man has an impact independent of the sports component is weaker for school engagement outcomes (school improvement index/GPA), including the 12-month follow-up finding.
Improved school engagement
post-intervention
Improvement index
Interpretation
Study
Improved school engagement
a year later
Improvement index
Interpretation
Study
Reduced arrests for violent crime
post-intervention
Improvement index
Interpretation
Study
Reduced arrests for all crime
post-intervention
Improvement index
Interpretation
Study
| Identified in search | 4 |
| Studies reviewed | 2 |
| Meeting the L2 threshold | 0 |
| Meeting the L3 threshold | 2 |
| Contributing to the L4 threshold | 0 |
| Ineligible | 2 |
| Study design | RCT |
| Country | United States |
| Sample characteristics | 2,740 highest risk male students in grades 7 to 10 (aged 12 to 16 years old) in 18 elementary and high schools in the Chicago Public School system. |
| Race, ethnicities, and nationalities |
|
| Population risk factors | The intervention focused on disadvantaged male youth from high-crime Chicago neighbourhoods, selected due to risk factors such as prior arrests, low academic performance, and poor school attendance. Many participants came from economically struggling families with limited educational and employment opportunities, and over one-third of the sample had been previously arrested. |
| Timing |
|
| Child outcomes |
|
| Other outcomes | None |
| Study rating | 3 |
| Citations | Heller, S., Pollack, H. A., Ander, R. & Ludwig, J. (2013) Preventing youth violence and dropout: A randomized field experiment. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 19014. |
| Study design | RCT |
| Country | United States |
| Sample characteristics | The study involved 2,064 disadvantaged male youth in Chicago, aged between 14 and 16 years old, attending Chicago Public Schools in high-crime neighbourhoods |
| Race, ethnicities, and nationalities |
|
| Population risk factors | The intervention focused on disadvantaged male youth from high-crime Chicago neighbourhoods, selected due to risk factors such as prior arrests, low academic performance, and poor school attendance. Many participants came from economically struggling families with limited educational and employment opportunities, and over one-third of the sample had been previously arrested. |
| Timing |
|
| Child outcomes |
|
| Other outcomes | None |
| Study rating | 3 |
| Citations | Heller, S. B., Shah, A. K., Guryan, J., Ludwig, J., Mullainathan, S. & Pollack, H. A. (2017) Thinking, Fast and Slow? Some field experiments to reduce crime and dropout in Chicago. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 132 (1), 1–54. |
The following studies were identified for this intervention but did not count towards the intervention’s overall evidence rating. An intervention receives the same rating as its most robust study or studies.
Cook, P. J., Dodge, K., Farkas, G., Fryer Jr, R. G., Guryan, J., Ludwig, J., … & Steinberg, L. (2014) The (surprising) efficacy of academic and behavioral intervention with disadvantaged youth: Results from a randomized experiment in Chicago (No. w19862). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Cook, P. J., Dodge, K., Farkas, G., Fryer, R. G., Guryan, J., Ludwig, J. & Mayer, S. (2015) Not too late: Improving academic outcomes for disadvantaged youth. Institute for Policy Research Northwestern University Working Paper WP-15-01.
Lansing, J. & Rapoport, E. (2016) Bolstering belonging in B.A.M. and beyond: Youth Guidance’s Becoming a Man (B.A.M.) program components, experiential processes, and mechanisms. A report to Youth Guidance. Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.
University of Chicago Crime Lab. (2018) Preventing youth violence: An evaluation of Youth Guidance’s Becoming a Man Program.
Walker, K. & Wilkinson, A. (2019) Building the evidence for impact and expansion: Youth Guidance strengthens Becoming A Man. Child Trends.
Note on provider involvement: This provider has agreed to Foundations’ terms of reference (or the Early Intervention Foundation's terms of reference), and the assessment has been conducted and published with the full cooperation of the intervention provider.
Rated 1: Set up and delivery is low cost, equivalent to an estimated unit cost of less than £100.
Rated 2: Set up and delivery is medium-low cost, equivalent to an estimated unit cost of £100–£499.
Rated 3: Set up and delivery is medium cost, equivalent to an estimated unit cost of £500–£999.
Rated 4: Set up and delivery is medium-high cost, equivalent to an estimated unit cost of £1,000–£2,000.
Rating 5: Set up and delivery is high cost. Equivalent to an estimated unit cost of more than £2,000.
Set up and delivery cost is not applicable, not available, or has not been calculated.
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Supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient.
Preventing child maltreatment: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient.
Enhancing school achievement & employment: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient.
Preventing crime, violence and antisocial behaviour: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient.
Preventing substance abuse: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient.
Preventing risky sexual behaviour & teen pregnancy: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient.
Preventing obesity and promoting healthy physical development: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient.
Rated 2: Has preliminary evidence of improving a child outcome from a quantitative impact study, but there is not yet evidence of causal impact.
Rated 2+: Meets the level 2 rating and the best available evidence is based on a study which is more rigorous than a level 2 standard but does not meet the level 3 standard.
Rated 3: Has evidence of a short-term positive impact from at least one rigorous study.
Rated 3+: Meets the level 3 rating and has evidence from other studies with a comparison group at level 2 or higher.
Rated 4: Has evidence of a long-term positive impact through at least two rigorous studies.
Rated 4+: Meets the level 4 rating and has at least a third study contributing to the Level 4 rating, with at least one of the studies conducted independently of the intervention provider.
Rating has a *: The evidence base includes mixed findings i.e., studies suggesting positive impact alongside studies, which on balance, indicate no effect or negative impact.
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